


Stockholm

by Guns_and_Drums



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Imprinting, Past Relationship(s), Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:10:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guns_and_Drums/pseuds/Guns_and_Drums
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way imprinting would happen to real people. "Stockholm syndrome is a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein a positive bond between hostage and captor occurs that appears irrational in light of the frightening ordeal endured by the victims. In essence, eventually, the hostage views the perpetrator as giving life by simply not taking it." Imprinting is the captor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> You guys remember in the movie Mulan when Mushu wakes from his stone form and he just rises from the smoke screaming "I live!"? Well, that's what I feel like. It's been a while, I know. I hope I've replied to all the reviews I've neglected since, like, September. If not, let me know!
> 
> So this is Stockholm it is my foray into the Sam/Leah/Emily fiasco. It's only canon compliant, I believe, until Leah and Seth phase, but I make no guarantees on how this thing will end. For those of you Sam/Leah 'shippers I believe Stealth_Liberal probably has a petition going at this point... Feel free to ship war it up, y'all. Play nice.
> 
> If it gets to be more than a month between updates get the torches and pitchforks and hunt me down. Seriously.
> 
> Word to the wise: this isn't going to be pretty; I cried a lot and listend to way too much 90s grunge while writing this. This is a re-imagining of what I think would REALLY happen to people that had to deal with a phenomenon like imprinting, though it is going to be about 95% canon compliant. The idea of Stockholm Syndrome and the title itself is important. Keep that in mind when you read.
> 
> Nothing is sacred.

_Stockholm syndrome: a psychological response of a hostage or an individual in a situation in which the more dominant person has the power to put the victim's life in danger._

* * *

My name is Samuel Levi Uley and I am a piece of shit.

_Hi Sam._

Thanks guys. I appreciate that.

There are some days when you really reflect on who you are and what you do and sometimes the results surprise you. I've come to a point in my life where I don't think about a lot of things. Because there are a lot of things that I could think about from now until the second coming and none of them would be healthy. And I've got a lot of shit to do in the meantime.

Mostly I think in lists. Because my life and my Pack moves at a pace that doesn't allow me to form full thoughts, just bullet points. Pack is probably the thing I think about most. And Emily.

1\. Pack  
2\. Emily  
3\. Hungry  
4\. Really fucking hungry  
5\. Leah  
6\. Need to take a piss/shit/chill pill/nap  
7\. Paul (and his anger issues), Jared (and the probability of him getting his imprint pregnant), Embry (and his potential to work himself into total psychosis if he doesn't figure out who the fuck his dad is, like, yesterday)

Yes. My ex girlfriend does outrank a majority of my bodily functions when it comes to thought space. This is kinda part of my problem.

Plus, I have three other guys to keep track of. This really weird part of my head loves those idiots. I can't help it. I'm their Alpha. However another really big part of me is worried as shit. I'm not gonna lie when I say that Paul scares me a little bit. That kid is jacked. His rage transmission is in near permanent overdrive  _and I have no idea why._  He lives alone with his dad - who is a pretty stand up guy - and as far as I can tell no one has shafted him, insulted his honor, stolen his soul, or dropped a house on his sister. The fact that I live inside his head and still have no idea why he's like the personification of a monster truck rally is what freaks me out.

I'm pretty sure the only thing Jared does is patrol and have sex. I make this kid patrol a lot. We  _all_  patrol a lot. However, again, with the whole sharing brain space thing - I know from Jared's complete lack of mental filter (his verbal filter is only marginally better, probably mostly because it doesn't have visuals) that he and Kim are having a lot of sex. And in a lot of weird places. I am getting so many unwelcome mental images of Kim Connweller that I really have no polite way to tell to him to shut that shit down and when the hell is he sleeping, eating, or breathing?

Embry is a whole other basket of clusterfuck, and I actually feel for the kid. He knows now that his paternal prospects are limited and as much as he just doesn't want to know,  _he really wants to know_. Which is an issue for the two upstanding fathers (one of them dead already) of his two closet friends. A very large part of me just wants to tell him that we're half brothers and be done with it. To hell with truth of it. But his constant inner dialogue is laced entirely with anxiety and borderline hysteria. If he found out I had lied to him, he'd probably lose his shit. If there was anyone that never should have phased, it was Embry Call. He's way to self-reflective. I've been trying to encourage him to think in lists.

Jacob Black has been showing signs of the phase. And while it'd be great to have another nose on the ground, and I can't wait to kick his ass for telling Bella the tribal legends, I also really don't want someone else to worry about. I can barely handle my own shit. I need to try to balance my current Pack. So in the meantime, I'm all aboard the Bella Swan train. This train involves my mentally cheering for her presence on this reservation near constantly, because Jacob thinks the sun shines out of her ass and that keeps him human. I am Bella Swan's number one fan, right now.

And then there's Emily. And Leah. Needless to say, my life is beyond fucked up.


	2. Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated M for citrusy flavors. Unedited mess is unedited.
> 
> I should probably also tell you that this starts before the Prologue and before Sam phases.

 

Leah checked the clock and hastily finished pulling her long hair back. She stood and snatched the folded letter off her nightstand. She left through the front door shouting to anyone that could here. "Going to Sam's! Back for dinner."

Seth was completely entranced in a video game and she couldn't see her Mom. She suspected her Dad wasn't home yet.

She hopped lithely down the stairs and across the street. She cut through the Ateara's yard and made for the far side of the reservation - which still wasn't far from anywhere else in La Push.

She jogged around the corner in time to see Sam's beat up old Corolla pull into the driveway. She ran up the drive and before he could even get out of the car, Leah startled him by slapping her letter - unfolded - against the glass of his window.

He jumped slightly, but grinned when he saw that it was Leah's hand plastering mail to his window. She was smiling from ear to ear, so he could assume it was good news and not like the many time before where she'd been the diplomatic messenger on her father and the Council's behalf reminding him that his mom hadn't paid the water bill in three months.

He looked at the piece of paper and recognized the seal almost instantly. He carefully popped the door open and stood, snatching the paper from Leah who turned to lean against the car while he read aloud.

"Dear Miss Clearwater," he affected a very polished tone. "It is my pleasure to confirm your acceptance to Georgetown University..." he stopped there glancing up at his girlfriend who was sporting the mother of all smiles. "That is fan-fucking-tastic, Leah."

"Thank you, oh great personal essay critic and human spell-checker," she replied.

He leaned into her, already pressed against the car door, and his lips found hers. Her arms wrapped easily around his neck as his hands held the letter and braced at the roof of the short car. "It was all you, Lee-Lee." He gave her long ponytail a playful tug, and used the opportunity to nibble at the skin just beneath her ear.

Her hand wrapped around the waistband of his jeans and pulled him a little bit closer. "You know, we are still in my driveway," Sam smiled against her skin.

"Don't think I'm not keenly aware of that."

"Well, thanks for letting me keep my pants on. You know Mrs. Wallace across the street is a window peeper and I just don't think her pacemaker could handle it."

Leah laughed in earnest and issued his stomach a playful slap.

"Don't beat on me, woman," he joked.

"Have you heard back from Columbia?" she asked.

"Not until at least next week," he reminded her. "But Northwestern seems to like me well enough, so I'm not complaining."

"Touché," Leah granted with a grin. Sam roped his arm around her shoulders and Leah began to head towards the house.

"It's the third of the month," Sam reminded her somberly trying to slow her pace. "You sure you want to go in there."

"You just got back, so your Mom hasn't had the car to cash her check. I doubt she's had time to get totally smashed yet."

"You know as well as I that she has her ways," Sam offered with a heartless laugh.

Allison Uley was a nice woman… when she was sober. Which was about 45% of the time. Her husband had – to Leah's knowledge, anyways – never laid a hand on either Sam or Allison, but hell if he hadn't been the biggest asshole in the county. For reasons that Leah didn't understand, fewer people had sympathy for victims of mental and emotional abuse than those of the physical variety. Sam hadn't seen his father in close to ten years, and it really didn't seem to bother him. Sam had been young enough to move on, but Allison was not nearly as resilient.

The older Sam got, the more he looked like his father. Leah gathered this given that with each passing year, Allison referred to him as 'Joshua' more often in and out of sobriety. Each time, it made Sam's face twitch a little with tension, but he rolled with it. And the older Sam got, the more his mother would drink.

Leah could put two and two together. She knew Sam reminded Allison of Joshua. Sam had told her as much. Apparently he  _did_  look just like his father. And it bothered him. It bothered him that it bothered his mother. Sam didn't have any gripes about biology putting genetics together in a reasonable way. It made sense to him that he looked like Joshua, but he knew that the more he was around his mom – particularly past the three o'clock hour – the more it bothered her. He'd never done anything to hurt her and he never would. So it bothered him the way she yelled defensively, and avoided him when her memory played tricks on her.

Leah was often a catalyst for sanity for the woman. Allison liked Leah, even if she was a bit more sarcastic than she was used to. She was a good girl, with a good head on her shoulders. And as much as Allison was able to doubt her own son's accomplishments for fear of him not only looking but becoming like his father, she was able to put enormous amounts of faith in Leah. Part of this spilled over for Sam's benefit as well. Allison approved of Leah and that had mellowed out his relationship with his mother significantly. She wasn't  _so_ terrified of his future prospects if he'd managed to sustain a relationship with someone like Leah Clearwater…

And Leah was a good mental mediator when Allison got to be just too much. Leah had never witnessed Allison calling Sam by his father's name. She'd only heard about it from him when he came over to her house – stony and distant – the day after. Leah thought that maybe her presence reminded Allison that Sam was not Joshua. If Sam struck a familiar chord, Leah certainly didn't. Allison had no point of perspective to cast a face like Leah's into the past. So as crazy, loud, and potentially violent as Allison was, her mind still always saw them as Sam and Lees. Because Joshua and Leah would have been incongruous even in her inebriated mind.

It was an unspoken sort of agreement between Sam and Leah that Leah helped with his mother. Leah was lucky enough to have two sober parents and a dorky little brother. By all statistics, she and Seth had dodged the mother of all bullets when it came to reservation statistics. But Leah knew that almost every household on the reservation could count at least one person with a drinking problem among its numbers. Many of those were full-fledged alcoholics. However, most families were big and stratified. Grandparents, parents, kids, some aunties, and maybe some cousins were often found living under the same roof. The task of aiding a family member mired in generations' worth of depression, anger, and marginalization was spread among many. But Sam and Allison lived alone. So Leah helped. Because Leah loved Sam and she cared about Allison.

She climbed the steps as Sam pulled the mail from its rusty box.

"Hi, Allison," Leah greeted as she stepped inside. She looked around, but could not immediately see her. She made towards the living room and she felt Sam come up behind her. Allison was seated on the living room floor with what appeared to be photo albums spread all around her. However, there wasn't a single bottle of alcohol, so that was nice.

"Oh for the love of god," Sam muttered before turning back towards the kitchen. Leah smiled but watched him march off. She knew he wasn't mad; he was just embarrassed. She watched him stand at the breakfast counter and fire the mail in various piles: pay, ignore for another week, trash.

She joined Allison on the floor and sat opposite her. "What are we looking at?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, I've taken so many pictures over the years and a lot of them have just gotten stuffed in unused albums. I just haven't had the time to really scrapbook them properly."

"This one is gorgeous," Leah remarked, her hand gently gliding along the edge of the almond colored pages. It was old – she could tell by the photos – but very meticulously made. The photos were mounted carefully, with names and dates in a gentle script right below. Stickers, appliqués, background matting, and the like also filled the pages. "Can I look?" she asked.

Allison nodded as she glanced through the stack of photos in her hand. Leah took the album gently into her lap. She started at the beginning. There were photos of a very young Allison – with siblings and family, she imagined. Then a young man who looked conspicuously like Sam started appearing. She smiled sadly, noting how happy both Joshua and Allison looked. Leah didn't know the details of their marriage and separation, but Joshua looked so happy she wondered how he'd turned so mean.

A few more pages worth of the pair at the beach, on some carnival rides, a friend's wedding, and what appeared to be a family reunion. Then a growing belly on Allison for a whole spread before a small tufty-haired baby made its appearance. Squinty-eyed and splotchy, the curled feet and fisted hands reached from inside the plastic hospital baby-bed towards the photo taker. He grew fast over the next few pages, growing bright brown eyes and lots of dark hair. Crawling and walking and splashing and… "Oh my  _god_. Sam, what did you do?" Leah wailed with laughter.

"Oh, hell," Sam cursed as he stalked from the kitchen. "Mom, what are you showing her?"

Leah clutched the album to her chest as he tried to pull it away from her. Finally the laughter won out and she lost her grip. "Oh…" he replied in surprise upon a closer look.

"Why are you covered in blue paint? You look like a smurf!"

"I was three!" Sam insisted petulantly.

"You were four," Allison corrected, "and your Aunt Ellen and I wanted to paint the front door because the salt air had killed the original color. You were happily playing with your trucks in the yard, and I turned around for five seconds only to have you execute a full-body roll into the paint tray.

Leah rolled onto her back as the laughter robbed her of the ability to breathe properly. "It all came off rather quickly, once we put you in the tub. But that hair," she reached up to ruffle Sam's head, "was so thick it took at least a week to get it all out of your hair and off your scalp."

"I remember that," Sam nodded with a half-grin. "You and Aunt Ellen thought peanut butter would work. I smelled like that stuff for days."

She shrugged. "It works on gum. I was twenty-two, Sam. I didn't have nearly the life-experience to realize that wouldn't work."

"This explains the blue foot prints on the walkway," Leah teased.

The afternoon was remarkably drama free, as Allison spent time pasting Sam's formative middle school years into an empty album. He was oh-so-eagerly awaiting her step into his high school years. He'd spent the better part of his freshman year figuring out how his newly elongated limbs worked and how to get rid of acne. He'd luckily outgrown his awkward stage that spring and in the summer, he got up the guts to ask Leah Clearwater to go out with him. After she kicked his butt in a game of one-on-one basketball.

"It was a good day, today," Leah noted as he walked with her back to her house, their interlocked hands swinging between them as they kicked pebbles and bits of gravel back and forth.

"Surprisingly, yes," Sam admitted. "My mother is less convinced I will end up like my dead-beat dad when you're around."

Leah just rolled her eyes. She wasn't up to arguing the point with him –  _again._  "You're a good guy, Sam. That's not the only thing your Mom forgets sometimes. It's not your fault."

"So, have you given your letter from Georgetown anymore thought? You were on the fence about them and Stanford and now they've both let you in."

"Ugh," Leah sighed. "I know. Now I have to make a decision… I was kind of hoping they'd decide for me."

"I have so much pity for the girl who's forced to decide between Stanford and Georgetown."

"Shut up," she replied, giving him a gentle shove with their interlinked hands.

"Well, could I maybe give you one more decision to make? I like to think this one's a little easier, though."

"Shoot," she nodded.

"Marry me?"

"What?" Leah choked as her feet secured themselves firmly to the ground. She hadn't been expecting that one at all. It came out of left field and socked her squared in the gut.

"Well, not like  _now_  but some day. I'm gonna lose you soon, Lee-Lee. Four whole years. And the caveman part of me would pretty happy if it knew it had a little part of you to claim as its own."

"You have more than a little part of me, Samuel," Leah told him as she stared at the ground. Leah always faced the world head on. So the fact that she was staring at the ground kinda worried Sam. "But yes, I will marry you. Someday." She looked up for the last part with an uncontrollable smile on her face.

Sam's face split with relief and joy. Leah let out a small squeak of delight and proceeded to jump on him. He held on and gave her an easy spin. "I love you."

"Thank you," Sam replied.

Leah had gone on a very philosophical journey during the last half of their junior year. It was then that she had explained to him that she thought love was a gift, and that if someone gave you this gift you were supposed to do the polite thing and thank them for it. Then you could express your own feelings. But to simply brush their offer of love aside with your own would've been rude. Only Sam and Harry had really caught her drift and stuck with it. "I love you, too."

"Thank you."

* * *

"Oh…" Leah released a breath. "I'm so close," she groaned. Her grip on the metal headboard tightened as Sam moved into her in his smooth rhythmic fashion. Everything about Sam was smooth and steady. He was never unpredictable or rough, and Leah knew she'd never leave a bed disappointed.

If Sam was a slow burn, then Leah was a Molotov cocktail. They balanced each other: Sam reigning Leah back in when she got ahead of herself, and Leah making sure Sam didn't take life too seriously.

She felt stubble against her collarbone as he paid careful attention to the skin at her neck.

She pushed her hips into his rhythm and pulled her knees up higher, the old bed creaking beneath them. She felt a hand trace the curve of her waist, across her hips and one well-practiced thumb slipped inside and pushed her over the edge. He followed moments later as she rode out the wave of pleasure.

Her hands rested against the cold brass bed above her head, and she felt Sam's weight shift as he lay beside her. They both ignored the mess as Leah's eyes drifted closed and Sam pulled the top sheet around them.

"I needed that," Leah mumbled rolling over and pressing her face into Sam's shoulder.

"Anything I can do to help," Sam replied with a dry laugh. "I can always tell when you're home alone with your mother."

"How so?" Leah demanded to know. It couldn't have been that obvious…

"Lee-lee…" Sam began slowly. "You marched into my house, grunted at me, pointed at the bedroom door, and pulled me onto the bed. Usually you're much better with words. You only go full cave-woman like that when your mom is being a bitch."

"I have no shield!" She protested. "Dad  _and_  Seth are gone on some stupid manly camping, fishing, whatever trip. It's me and my mother. Alone. So either I could stay at home and turn into a ball of rage, or I could come here and get laid."

"I fully support your decision to act responsibly and not break anything in your house," Sam told her in mock seriousness.

"Shut up," she muttered without fire.

"Get some sleep Leah," he smiled. "We have an AP Calc exam tomorrow morning."

* * *

"Where the hell is Sam?" Leah asked as she dropped her lunch tray onto the table half full of people the next day. Leah and Sam had woken up characteristically late for school, dressed in an exhausted haze, and shared a cup of coffee on the drive to class that morning. She hadn't seen him since she snagged a pass after finishing that Calculus exam. "He still has my Chem notes."

"Search me," Jared replied.

"I'd rather not," Leah offered.

"He said he felt like crap at the start of last period," Evan offered from across the table. "He left class with the rest of us, but I didn't see him at his locker."

Leah took this for face value and took her seat. She'd told Sam he felt like he'd had a fever when she woke feeling like she'd slept on the surface of the sun. He'd denied as usual. Sam was a grade-A wimp when he was sick, and he wouldn't admit to it until it was patently obvious to everyone around him. She'd check on him after class.

For now, she had to spend her lunch period with Rachel Black as she tried – in vain – to explain Robert Frost to Leah. Again.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and Leah collected Sam's missed work like the good friend she was. Rachel joined her on the way home since Becca was busy flirting with some basketball player. Leah stopped in the local family-run restaurant for a quart of their soup and the pair waited patiently for the slow moving old man.

"What happened to Hannah?" Leah asked. "You two were so into each other I didn't see hide nor hair of you for, like, two weeks. Ditch the girlfriend for an afternoon?"

"Ugh," Rachel rolled her eyes. " _Ex-_ girlfriend. She was way too intense for me. Too much talking and reading of Nietzsche and wondering about the origin of the 'self'… I swear, if I suggested we get a burger and watch  _Mean Girls_  her head would've imploded. I can't bring myself to care that much for such extended periods of time."

Leah laughed. "She seemed to be a bit much. I told you that you were crazy."

"Um, no," Rachel corrected. "I'm pretty sure you told me that you'd be a way better girlfriend any day of the week."

"So true," Leah nodded in agreement as she accepted the container of soup from the old man's steady grip.

"The only problem is," Rachel reminded her slowly, holding the door as they left, "you are not single."

" _Minor_  technicality," Leah shrugged. "Sam tries to shove me off on you whenever I have PMS or want to watch the  _Star Wars_  prequel trilogy anyways. He hardly seems opposed."

"Don't tempt me."

The pair shared a deep belly laugh as they tromped up the street to the Uley house. "I'll spare you the germs," Leah said as she stopped at the start of the walkway. "Call you later?"

"Sure," Rachel nodded. "I'll kick Bec and Jake off the phone after eight."

"Righteous," Leah waved and made for the stairs. Sam's car was in the driveway, so that meant the odds were good that  _someone_  was home. She edged the door open carefully with her elbow – her arms occupied with soup and make-up work. "Hello?" Leah called as she stepped in the entryway. She made for the kitchen and put the stack of books and papers on the table, before placing the quart of soup in the fridge.

She couldn't hear anyone but there was an open bottle of whiskey on the counter. Leah took the liberty of pouring the rest of it down the drain and dropping the bottle into the trash. "Allison?" Leah called. She found the woman in the dark living room, crying into her lap. "What's going on, Allison?" Leah asked lightly, carefully talking the waterglass half of amber liquid from her grasp. She tried to talk, but Leah couldn't understand anything between the sobs and the slurring.

"Allison, has Sam been around?" The increased wailing indicated to Leah that that was an affirmative. She sighed. "Did you scare him off again?" More than once had Allison's rage and alcohol-induced hysteria moments sent Sam just running for the hills. Almost literally. Jared and Leah both lived up the hill and he spent more than a few nights on their couches.

Allison didn't respond and so Leah propped the woman up carefully. Allison was pretty far into her bottle of scotch so early in the afternoon and Leah figured that it had been new when she opened it. "Allison, is Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?" She looked at her glassy-eyed, and tear covered.

"He's a mouse," she answered after a few dull-faced moments. Slurred, but not totally incoherent. The lack of sense earlier must've been from the crying. This relieved Leah as she really didn't want to have to drive Allison to the hospital in Forks for alcohol poisoning. She'd done that twice – once by herself – and they weren't fun trips. She was responsive, answering questions, and breathing normally. She was just drunk.

"Why don't we get you to bed?" Leah suggested. She shrugged off her backpack and helped Allison to her feet. She got her to her bed, slipped off her shoes, and pulled the blankets up around her. She went back to the living room to retrieve her backpack and closed the front door behind her.

Her house was empty when she got home – her Mom still at work – and no sign of Sam. She went across the street to Jared's. She didn't even need to knock on the door to tell that Sam wasn't there. She could clearly see Jared uncharacteristically doing his homework at the kitchen table through the front window. He was younger than she, Sam, Rach and Becca and still had to actually do his homework.

She went back home and picked up the phone and dialed. "Hello," came the distracted recipient.

"Hey, sprog. Let me talk to your sister."

"Don't call me that, Leah," Jacob replied irritably. "I'm fourteen, not four."

"Let me talk to Rach," she told him, ignoring his years old complaint. Jacob heaved a long-suffering sigh and yelled for his sister.

"'Sup Lees?" Rachel asked casually.

"You seen Sam?"

"Since I last saw you a half hour ago? No. Why?"

"I can't find him."

"Well I haven't seen him. Hold on," Leah heard a muffled sound as Rachel must've tipped her head away from the receiver. " _Becca. Becca! Don't you 'what?!' me. Have you seen Sam lately?"_  More static and she returned. "Becca says she hasn't seen him, and she just got home from the school. I'm sure he's around. He's probably just escaped the madhouse for a bit."

"Yeah, yeah. Just figured I'd check."

Leah was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor doing her homework an hour later when her mom got home from work. She was frustrated enough to start with. Her English and History homework were really beating the crap out of her. This was Sam's field. He was the one that always breezed through these types of classes. He had a head for humanities and had been walking Leah through a great majority of their ridiculous English assignments this year. Leah was logical and technical. She excelled in their AP Calc class. She loved going to Physics every afternoon. She hated not being able to piece something together in a predictable and formulaic way. It frustrated her to no end, and her normal source of relief was MIA. She was kinda pissed at him for that. She hoped his Chemistry homework was giving him as much a headache as her English was doing to her.

Leah's irritation levels only sky-rocketed when her mother proceeded to come in the house, dump her lunch box on the counter and tell Leah to sit up straight.

Leah rolled her eyes none too subtly. "Hi mom. My day was good, thanks for asking. How was yours?"

"Leah, cop the attitude," her mother offered blandly as she pulled the fridge open.

"I'll take the scoliosis if it means I finally understand my English homework. I've got bigger problems than my posture right now."

She tried to concentrate on her homework as her mom – she was  _sure_  – intentionally banged pots and pans together in her quest to make dinner. When the shepherd's pie was finally in the oven, she puttered elsewhere about the house.

"Leah," she called from somewhere down the hall. "I thought I asked you to take care of this load of towels?"

Leah suppressed her flare of anger. Tomorrow. Tomorrow Seth and her Dad would be home. "I'll get them in a minute, mom. I didn't hear the dryer stop."

"No, you'll get them  _now_ , Leah. You've had two hours to put the towels in the dryer and fold them. Is that really too much to ask, because I don't think it is."

"Christ," Leah seethed, snapping her book shut. "Fine. I'm fucking coming."

She stomped up the hall and towards the laundry closet. She snatched the basket from her mother's grip. "Thank you," Sue said pointedly. "If you weren't so hostile, it would go a long way to keeping some peace in this household."

"I'm not hostile, mom," Leah insisted as she dropped the basket rather forcefully on the couch and proceeded to fold the towels therein. "I'm stressed out. So sue me. Just because I had a bad day, or my homework is getting to me doesn't mean I'm a disrespectful bitch, or that I have a bad attitude, or that I don't know just how lucky I am," she finished in a falsely sweet tone, snipping off the moral of some of her mother's more popular diatribes. "It just means I'm stressed."

"Well, I don't know what you're stressed about, Leah. It's the end of your senior year. You've gotten into some great schools. Things should be getting easier. I gave you a lot of leeway last year with classes and SATs and then in the fall with applications and SAT IIs, but all this negative energy has stuck around."

"Mom, it doesn't just  _poof_  get easier all of a sudden! You went to school too! I have finals coming up. My English Lit homework makes  _no_  sense whatsoever, I still haven't heard back from financial aid for either Georgetown  _or_ Stanford and Sam has been missing  _all day._ "

Leah collapsed down onto the couch, her eyes welling up. She angrily tried to force them to stop. Leah had the embarrassing tendency of crying whenever she was angry or stressed out and she hated it. She hated crying.

Sue rushed over from the kitchen and pulled the basket off the couch to sit next to her daughter and pull her into a side hug. "Leah, honey, don't cry. Look,  _I know_  that senior year is hard. I'm not trying to say it isn't. I'm just concerned that all this tension you're carrying is affecting you and the family, all right? I didn't know your homework was causing you such trouble today."

Sue offered a smile, and a gentle pat to Leah's head before bending to pick up Leah's textbook. She split it open where the pencil held the page. "Thoreau and Emerson? Hm… Why don't you come help me set the table and we can talk transcendentalism, okay?"

Leah sighed a deep breath and reached to wipe her face. "Okay. Thanks mom."

 


	3. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that this story will henceforth be a clusterf*ck of emotional trauma and I'm just holding on to my word processor, watching through my fingers, and hoping nothing derails.
> 
> God save the Queen. Or something.

 

Leah made it a week with no word from Sam before she called Emily from beneath the covers of her bed. Both Seth and her dad were back from their male bonding time and Seth had put in hardy leg work in helping Leah figure out just where the  _fuck_  Sam had got to. Neither of them had any luck. And now the whole town was worried.

Allison was having fits because as crazy as she was, no one doubted for a second that she loved Sam more than anything else and wanted nothing for the best for him. Leah knew that her steep spiral into insanity was part worry for Sam and part a sense of twisted déjà vu thinking she was watching the flight Joshua Uley all over again. As far as Leah knew, this was more or less exactly how Sam's father disappeared. He just up and left one day without a word to anyone.

Leah couldn't handle being the rock anymore. Seth was great, but he was thirteen. And her mom was concerned in a clinical way like she would be if she saw the same story on the local news. She continually assured Leah that Sam would crop back up and not to fret. Sue didn't seem to realize and register that Leah wasn't concerned about Sam not being able to take care of himself, but the very reason for his disappearance should be cause for concern.

Only Harry really seemed to get it. As usual. Leah's relationship with her mother was a typical one, Leah assumed, between a no-nonsense mother and a hardheaded teenager. Harry had always been calmer than his wife. He listened, and he nodded, and he hummed in understanding. Then after a long pause he was always able to offer a joke that would lighten the tension or piece of advice so simple on its surface and yet unyieldingly complex and function in its application.

"Dad," Leah had come moping and whining into the living room earlier that day. Sue was out in the yard tilling the earth for her garden and Seth was out with friends.

"Sit, sit," Harry insisted patting the spot on the couch next to him. Harry wasn't much taller than Sue. Both the Clearwater parents clocked in between five and a half and six feet. Harry only slightly taller than Sue. Leah had been taller than her dad for almost a year now at an even six feet. That didn't mean she couldn't curl up at her dad's side and tell him about the monsters under her bed.

"Dad, I'm  _really_  starting to get worried," Leah said as she sidle up to Harry and he lowered the TV's volume. He slung an arm over the girl's narrow shoulders and listened intently. "Like, whatever… I get the whole running off and doing your own thing shtick. I don't care about that. I'm not a clingy psycho. I just… that's not a Sam thing, Dad. It would be like if you just up and decided to take off for a week. Totally out of left field."

"I agree. Sam is a responsible boy. But did you ever stop to consider the possibility that maybe the stress just got to the boy?"

"What do you mean?"

"You kids got a lot on your plate, Miss Leah," Harry explained. "Both of you. Smart as whips, going to good schools, got good grades. Lot a reading. Which is good. Reading is good. Getcha off the rez… but, that's a lot to hang over a person's head. You got us, Leah. Me and Seth and your mom – even though I know she gives you a hard time on occasion. But Sam doesn't have that. He's got his mama, but Allison spends most of her time making sure she keeps her stuff together, and that's okay."

"He's got me," Leah insisted. "And all of us. Mom likes him more than she likes me, and I know you two have some weird guy bond that'll never understand, but I know your constant harassment of each other just means you like each other. Plus, everyone on this reservation  _loves_ him. He's one of the golden children."

"But Sam's just gotten used to us. You two haven't been close for too long. He may not be used to it. It's been just him and his mom for a long time. He's not used to a support system. And so the question remains: where do you fall when you don't have any landing gear?"

"I wish I knew…" Leah pouted.

It was Harry's suggestion that Leah call Emily. Honestly, Leah had no idea how that had escaped her brain. Emily would know what to do. Emily always knew what to do. Leah was the brute force and Emily was the brains behind the operation. The pair of girls were a force to be reckoned with and had been turning their wiles on both the La Push and Makah reservation, where Emily lived, since they were children. Emily was the epitome of calm under pressure.

And so Leah called Emily.

"Emmmm," Leah whined from beneath her quilt.

"Leah?" Emily replied, sounding a bit distracted. "What's up?"

"I can't find Sam," Leah muttered.

"I told you I'd buy you a leash for your birthday, but  _no_ , you shot that one down. You refused to submit to the heteronormative gender stereotypes that casts women as controlling bitches in relationships, furthering the need for men to assert their aggression to maintain control over their lives, and thereby perpetuating a culture that fosters violence against women. Or something."

"No, Emily. Like… he's been missing. For a week now."

"What?!" Emily replied in shock. Leah heard something clatter to the floor and muffled curse. "Shoot…"

"You mean he's legitimately missing? Holy cow… Leah? What is going on?"

"I don't know, Em. I don't know. He went missing from school a week ago and no one has seen or heard from him since. I'm panicking, Em. I don't know what to do."

"Have you guys been looking?" Emily had gone from outright shock to a cool pragmatic in the course of forty-five seconds and Leah already felt the pressure in her chest lessen. Emily always knew what to do.

"Seth, Rachel, Jared, me, and even Jacob and his dorky friends have turned over every stone on this reservation and there is no sign of him."

"Has anyone called Charlie? He's probably got some pretty good connections and know how, by default."

"Allison called him this afternoon. I'm going to go see him tomorrow just to reassure him that it's not another panic-induced false alarm on her part and that it's totally legit."

"All right," Emily said determinedly. "I'm coming down this weekend, okay? I know it's Monday but will you be all right until, like, Friday night? I have to hammer out a few finals and then I'll come down and we will Charlie's Angels this situation to the high heavens."

"I love you, Emily."

"Love you, too, Leah," Emily said warmly. "In the mean time, try and branch out. Talk to Allison and see if they've got local family off the rez. Or friends, too. Check out any haunts off the rez too. If you want to be real creepy see if you can call the phone company and track his cell."

"You are amazing."

"Don't sell yourself short, girlfriend. I'll be in La Push by Friday at dinnertime. Tell Sue to prep the pull out sofa."

* * *

Sam had been out in the woods for two goddamn weeks.

Fourteen shitty days.

A fucking fortnight.

It had all started innocently enough, and Sam was only now beginning to remember what the hell had happened to him. He'd gone home from school feeling like absolute crap and really hoping he wasn't getting sick. He was putting some semblance of food together in the kitchen when his mother started.

He exhaled and looked around. He'd totally missed the quarter empty bottle of whiskey on his way into the house. He wrenched the fridge door open and there was another eight-pack of cheap-ass beer waiting to disappear. He was usually more aware of that kinda shit.

"Sam, I just  _bought_  that!" His mother wailed, barreling into the room as he cracked open and poured a can down the drain. He felt anger spike like a stoked fire. It burned up his spine, and made his head foggy. He gripped another full can in his other hand and he heard the tin crunch slightly under his grip.

"Ma, we got a couple bills that need to be paid or they're going to repossess the car! Can't you just hold off for a  _week_?"

"Samuel, do not talk to me like I don't know these things, all right? I'm your  _mother_."

"Well could you start fucking acting like it!" Sam's mouth snapped shut as soon as the words had come out. The fuck? He had a lot of patience when it came to his mother, because even if she was a drunk she did love him – even she confused him for his father sometimes. He never snapped at her, never yelled, and certainly never acted out because never in his life did he want to lend any credence to his mother's drunken confusion. He never wanted any reason for her (or himself, if he was being honest) to think he was anything like Joshua.

" _Don't you dare talk to me like that, Samuel Levi!"_  she shouted back. She stepped closer, and continued to yell but Sam had no idea what she was saying. The small moment of clarity he'd had was completely consumed by anger. No… not anger. Rage. This was something that Sam – a person with the emotional variation of sand – admittedly did not have a lot of experience with. He had no idea where it was coming from, or what do with it. He didn't high highs or low lows. Leah was the bottle rocket in his life and some things just set her off, but he was always placid, mellow. Of course he got angry, but not like  _this._

His mother was yelling and now throwing things around the room, but all Sam could do was stand stock-still. What the hell was happening to him? He felt a hot flash start from his feet and crash over his back like he was standing in a boiling tide. He started shaking, his hands grew unsteady, and the half crushed beer can in his hand crashed to the floor with a greater amount of noise than was really necessary.

Sam didn't know what was happening, but he felt the sudden, instinctual need to leave. He needed to go.

_Get out_ , something deep inside his conscious mind told him. He obeyed without even thinking, moving towards the door and past his raving mother. Somewhere he acknowledged that she was upset, but he was beyond the ability to help her. He couldn't even help himself. He moved on autopilot, trapped inside his own body as his limbs obeyed a forceful inner voice that he'd never known before.

"Sam, come back here! Don't you dare walk out of this house!  _Sam!"_

He was out of the house, and down the porch with surprising speed. Instead of feeling clueless about what he was doing or where he was going, he mechanically obeyed the voice.

_Run._

And he took off at a sprint across the road and into the woods. Absolutely clueless and terrified about what was going on, Sam opted to listen to the firm-voiced part of his mind that was willing to guide and give instructions since his own independent thought-processes couldn't handle the situation at hand. Maybe it was that fight or flight instinct? Maybe it was adrenaline? He didn't have a fucking clue, but it didn't feel right. It felt wrong. All wrong.

" _Sam come back here!"_  he heard his mother shout from the porch. " _Don't you dare run out on me!"_

Sam was not a dozen yards into the tree cover before he stumbled to a complete stop, paralyzed by pain. He fell to his hands and knees. What the hell was happening to him? Was this some kind of psychological break? That strange heat grew, and it pulsed through his veins like magma at intervals. It made him sick to his stomach and he felt like he might vomit that heat out of his system like a human geyser. He could feel the sweat on his hands and across his back.

As he made to stand, the grating noise of his mother's yelling and sobbing coming through loud and clear even at this distance, he felt the most horrific kind of pain. Over his skin – down his spine, across his back, and from his fingers to his shoulders, and his hips to his heels – he felt an awful kind of tearing. As if his skeleton was shearing itself of its cover, he felt his skin rip off his frame.

Deep within his bones it felt as if years worth of growing pains had been condensed into mere moments as cartilage and collagen turned to plasma inside him, shredding muscle mass as it went. The pain caused a loud tearing and ringing noise inside his head. He couldn't even hear his own screaming over the ripping and burning.

And then it all stopped. It was silent, except for the natural noises of the woods. Even the voice was gone, though Sam could feel it sitting and watching even if it wasn't talking.

Oh thank god. He realized it was over. He opened his eyes, from his spot collapsed on the ground and had to blink. Everything looked really screwy and… holy shit, why the hell could he see so far?! He could make out the individual needles on the pines a dozen feet ahead, and he could see clear through the trees and up the hill to the Cameron's property. He could never do that before.

He blinked again and glanced around, the new perspective making him woozy as hell. He tried to move and something didn't feel right. Oh, fuck…

After that point, Sam lost all semblance of coherent thought for the better part of ten days as he realized the legs beneath him were four – not two – and he'd grown substantially larger, substantially furrier, substantially more lupine.

The abstract realization that he was almost definitely losing his mind allowed him to stand up and stumble towards a puddle that had grown and stilled in the previous night's rainstorm. He glanced down and what he saw made everything in his brain go white.

This was a new kind of pain. And sick as it was, it was marginally comforting in that it felt sort of familiar. His skin got chilly all over and though it felt like he might've started sweating he couldn't. It just got harder to breathe. His chest began to hurt, and his heart sent shooting spikes of pain down through his extremities and made it feel like his brain was swelling inside his head. He felt a whole body of fur ruffle around him.

He dared look again into the puddle. Staring back at him was the muzzle of a large black wolf. Eyes yellow as the sun and cold and heartless as a stone, but undeniably alive and intuitive. The ears were pinned back and when Sam moved his head so did the wolf. He felt a small spike of panic and the wolf whined before baring its six-inch long canines.

Somehow, the dots connected themselves, and the shock that was depriving Sam of vital oxygen stole his consciousness.

….

Sam had finally regained some kind of grip over his own head. It had been a few days, but he'd managed to sustain consciousness. That was about it. He was still in a state of absolute spiraling panic. But the voice had returned and largely directed him to vital necessities. Food, water, sleep.

After a week and a half, he thought that maybe it would be safe to return the woods around La Push, that maybe the search parties had been called off. He sniffed and listened as he came back within surroundings. The smells were stale and no one could be heard. He was alone. He made his way quietly along, not entirely sure where he was going, but operating on instinct alone. It was dusk and the light was rapidly disappearing from the sky.

The trees thinned ahead and Sam slowed at the sight of what was probably a yard and people. He crouched low, realizing exactly where he was. He settled into the layer of pine needles and closed his eyes. The scent was heartbreakingly familiar. However his lupine nose was so much more able to pick up on the smell on the wind than his human nose would ever be. It had never been so powerful and all-encompassing before. It was like being reminded of something he'd forgotten. The idea of forgetting Leah Clearwater made him want to throw up… but the voice ahead told him he couldn't afford to be doing that anymore.

Then he heard a slight noise: the creak of wood and metal at regular intervals. A swing. When Sam and Leah were fifteen, they'd built a bench swing for her parents for their twentieth wedding anniversary. Harry and Sue loved it, but it definitely saw use from the whole family. Leah only ever went out to it alone when she was feeling contemplative.

In addition to the smell of Leah, and the sound of her on the creaking swing, Sam could hear a slight sound as if she were talking.

"… _he laughed under his breath because you thought that you could outrun sorrow. Take your own advice, thunder and lightening gets you rain…"_

No, she was singing. Sam laid his front paws over his snout and tried to burrow his muzzle into the dirt. Leah only ever sang when she was sad. And sometimes after she was angry. She sang to cheer herself up, and she didn't let very many people hear her, even though she was quite good. She never sang  _for_  anyone – except for Seth when he was little – but she'd recently silently decided that if Sam overheard her, it wasn't a big deal. He'd never mentioned it. She thought it was a weakness.

"… _hear the mockingbird sing in the middle of the night. All of his songs are stolen so he hides. Stole them out from whiporwills, screaming car alarms. He sings them for you special. He knows you're afraid of the dark. Come on sorrow take your own advice: hide under the bed, turn out the light…"_

Sam wriggled in the needle-cover and moved to angle where he could see Leah, but remained hidden. She was lying on the bench with her arms wrapped loosely around her bunched up knees. She was staring into the middle distance with no expression as she sang to herself.

Sam's sniper-like vision could tell that she looked awful. Her eyes were red and they were framed by dark circles. Her cheeks looked lifeless and she smelled like shower soap. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head without much regard for neatness.

Her singing was interrupted by the phone ringing inside. " _Leah?"_  Sam heard Seth's voice call out. She stood soundlessly and ran into the house.

" _Rachel? When did you get back? …oh. Okay. Any word if they've seen him in Hoquiam? I called Emily and she's coming down this weekend, but she says no one's seen him in Neah Bay… Okay… No, that's all right. Thanks for checking, I appreciate it. No, it's all right. I'll tell Allison… Yeah, I'll see you in class tomorrow. Get some sleep."_

There was a long and heavy exhale. The sound of the phone dropping on the counter and the screen door swinging open and snapping back shut. Sam heard Leah shuffle across the grass and she sat on the bench now. Her head rested in her hands and a distinctly salty smell reached Sam's nose. Again, it was familiar… but it was like something he'd forgotten. Why was that scent so familiar? It… tasted like tears. Leah was crying.

Sam closed his eyes and resisted the urge to either barrel into her yard or run all the way back to Canada. Again.

He was doing this to her. He couldn't delude himself into thinking that phone call came from Rachel Black for any other reason. He loved Leah Clearwater, and his sole mission in life had been to make her smile because it seemed like she was always mad at her mom or society in general; she was always such a cynic and it got to her sometimes. But this wasn't cynicism. He'd run out on her with no excuse, no explanation. All signs pointed to him being dead… He was doing to her exactly what his father had done to his mother. He'd become what he always hated.

Instead of making him angry, the thought made him miserable and mellowed his frazzled mind. He kept his eyes closed and focused on every sound Leah made. Every breath, every sob, every shuffled foot, every hand in her hair or across her cheek. The sound of her heartbreak grounded him in a way that he hadn't felt since the mooring lines of his sanity had been cut two weeks ago. She was pulling him closer back to shore… Leah.

And then he felt the ground fly out in every direction, expanding underneath his stomach. He opened his eyes briefly and things looked… foggier, less defined, but still far more sharp than he'd been used to. He looked around and there were two legs underneath him, arms around his head… he was back.

He swallowed, his throat dry and scratchy from stream water, raw deer, and lots of howling and puking. He tried to speak, but it only came out as a rasp. "Leah?"

"Leah," the sound was audible and slightly less like sandpaper.

"Leah," a full-bodied and familiar sound, much like his own voice. He heard Leah's crying stop and her breathing paused. She sat up and looked into the woods where he sat, but clearly didn't see him.

"Sam?" she whispered. She looked like she thought she was crazy for even trying.

"Leah," Sam repeated finding himself unable to move from the crumpled heap on the forest floor. If he kept his forehead against the ground there was no chance of spinning.

"Sam!" Leah stood and ran towards the sound. She came crashing through the underbrush and stopped short when she found him – stark naked on the ground, breathing intentionally slowly and hoping he stayed human. She collapsed to her knees and forcefully pushed his shoulders up so as to see his face. Through the vertigo, Sam could tell that she was shocked, amazed, elated, and angry as hell.

"Oh my god, Sam!" she wailed, launching herself forward and pulling his head towards her chest. She babbled through renewed tears. "Sam are you okay? You're such a fucking asshole; I can't believe you! Are you hurt? What happened?"

He felt frantic fingers as she hugged him to her, but then pushed back to look at his face and check him for signs of damage. "Why the hell are you naked? Where have you been? I hate you so much. If you ever do that to me again, I'll kill you and throw you into the ocean, I swear to god." She peppered her words with kisses to his face, and electrified him. It had been so long since he'd had the contact of another human, let alone someone he cared about so deeply. But he had her back. He had Leah back.

"Leah," Sam spoke again. He was getting used to his own voice again, to words and spoken language, but it also felt a hell of a lot like an affirmation.

"Yeah?" she replied quietly, kindly. She sat back on her heels – his face in her hands. "What is it Sam?"

"I… I…"

"Are you okay? Do I need to call an ambulance?"

Sam shook his head.

"Are you in trouble? Do I need to cut a bitch? Because I can get the shovel and a bag of lime and we can be back by dawn."

Sam shook his head.

Leah nodded, trusting him, taking him at face value despite all indicators that should have told her he was lying. "Okay, well let's get you inside the house. You're burning up, sweetheart." The hand at his forehead slipped gently down his arm as the other wrapped around his middle. She helped him to his feet and they made their way out of the woods, through the yard, and into the house.

Sue was at work, and Harry was already asleep, but Seth stared with his spoon halfway to his open mouth as Leah walked her naked, filthy, previously-missing boyfriend to the bathroom. Leah closed the door. Sam realized he was sitting on the floor of her shower when the ice-cold water hit his skin.

"Sorry!" she replied to his natural shudder. "You're burning up," her hand moved gently over his face and guided his hair out of the way. She rolled up her pants and sat on the edge of the tub and carefully worked to clean the two weeks worth of dirt and grime from Sam's frame.

Her fingers were slow and move in measured patterns. Sam figured she noticed that he was a little jumpy.

There was a knocking at the door, that startled Sam and he instinctively grabbed Leah's wrist and growled at the offending door. Leah carefully disentangled herself. "What is it, Seth?"

"Was, uh… was just wondering if I needed to call somebody. Because, I have an algebra test tomorrow, so I really don't have time to explain to Charlie Swan about how Sam died in our bathroom."

"He's not going to die, Seth," Leah replied with a small smile. "I promise."

"Good, because I still have to kick his butt in Mortal Kombat."

"You wish," Sam blurted out without thinking. Leah released a relieved laugh, maybe glad that he'd finally said more than just her name.

Seth went back to the kitchen and his cereal and Sam was looking substantially cleaner. Leah just shook her head and worked her fingers through the snarls in his long hair. "What in heaven's name happened to you, Sam Uley?" she muttered mostly to herself.

"Huh?" he replied unintelligently.

"Sam, aside from the fact that you were missing for almost two weeks now and showed up naked in the woods, you have grown several inches and appear to have gained pounds of muscle mass. That isn't exactly a body's normal reaction to disappearing for two weeks. Are you on drugs?" She deadpanned the last. It was a sore spot, mostly because Sam never wanted anything to do with a kind of lifestyle that would make people think he was a degenerate.

"No," he told her. "Honest."

"Does your Mom know you're back?"

"No, you're the first person I've seen."

"Sam, you need to go see her."

"No," he shook his head.

"Sam…" she began sternly. "At least call the woman."

"No," he repeated. "I'll go see her tomorrow. I promise."

"But Sam—"

"Leah, please?" he begged her. It wasn't that he didn't know his mother was likely worried as hell, but he really didn't want to have to think about that too much. He was still trying to get acclimated to the fact that he was back. He had the minor issue of addressing whether or not he was sane. Did everything he remember actually happen? Or did he experience some kind of psychotic episode. One thing was for sure: he wasn't telling anybody. Not even Leah.

No one would believe him, and if they did they'd lock him up. And he was pretty sure that confinement of any kind would not help at all. But for the sake of his head… he just wanted to know what the hell had happened to him.

"C'mon," Leah indicated as she finished tying off his hair with a hair band. "Let's get you some clothes. He was able to walk to Leah's room under his own will, but he kept Leah's fingers loosely twined with his. She rummaged around her dresser for a few moments. "I know I have a pair of your shorts in here somewhere…" she mumbled. "Aha!"

She passed him the mesh shorts, and as he reached for them his hand slid over hers. It moved up towards her elbow as she stepped closer. She watched him carefully, but didn't speak. His other arm moved and he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her.

She was right: he was taller. She used to only be a few inches shorter than him. Now he was a whole head taller than her. This was a feat, considering the girl was six feet tall. He bent down, his arms around her waist and he buried his face in her neck near her shoulder. Her scent was overwhelming and comforting. It coated his electrified nerves with a gentle calmness and he felt the last of his physical anxiety drift out of his system.

"You're okay, Sam," she whispered. "You're all right." Her hands were gentle against his back and her voice was quiet and soothing.

He took the shorts and slipped them on without really moving away from her at all. "Sleep," she told him without question, prodding him towards her bed. "I'll spend the night on the couch."

"Please don't," Sam replied.

"Sam, I can't have my mother come home to find us in the same bed. She'll be glad to know you're okay, but not that glad."

"Then I'll hang out with you in the living room."

"Don't be ridiculous. You look like hell. You need sleep."

There was no way Sam was letting Leah out of his sight. She was his anchor, after all, and she'd finally managed to pull him back into shore. The last thing he wanted was to lose sight of her and be cast adrift in his own insanity again.

Leah looked at him appraisingly, knowing he wouldn't agree and opted for compromise. "Lay down," she instructed. "I'll stay for a while."

Sam sighed in relief and plopped down on the familiar bed. Leah took a seat, leaning against the wall at the head of the bed and putting an arm over Sam's back as he hooked her waist. And because Leah was as intuitive as she was abrasive, her tried and true method of calming herself is what sent Sam into the first peaceful sleep he'd had in two weeks.

" _We are living 'neath the great Big Dipper, we are washed by the very same rain. We are swimming in the stream together, some in power and some in pain... We're all swimming to the other side."_


	4. Part 3

**Hi everyone. Sorry this is so epically late. Life has been abolute MADNESS lately and I've turned to all but a hermit, seen only by my few coworkers and the other two members of my household.**

**For those waiting on a Manifesto update: it's coming, I promise. It's essentially done, but I need to go back over it again so it looks like it was written by a human being. Thank you for your patience.**

* * *

It had been the only thing to penetrate his consciousness all night. He hadn't heard Sue come home, but he could hear her heart beating across the small house. Wait… the fuck? He could hear five heartbeats distinctly. One was very, very close.

"Sam?" Leah spoke. He glanced down, realizing he had not only sat upright but was leaning over the bed like he was ready to lunge, preventing her from sitting up. "Back up a bit for me. Thank you."

Sam glanced around the room and felt his eyes squint reflexively. He had the mother of all headaches, and the meager light coming from the sun's dawn was blinding in its intensity. He fumbled with the cord for the blinds until they came crashing down at an odd angle. Fucking good enough.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, he could hear Leah's heartbeat, her breathing. He could hear Seth's strong, slow heartbeat in the room down the hall, Sue's regular pattern, and Harry's weaker heart carrying on like a trooper.

"Your brother snores like a fucking monster truck," Sam muttered idly.

Leah glanced around bleary-eyed. "Dude, what are you talking about? I can't hear anything." Her hand reached up easily and she pressed her palm to his forehead, before it migrated to his cheek. "You are burning up."

"I'm fine," Sam replied automatically.

"Sam, you are not fine. You went AWOL for almost two weeks, you turned up naked in the woods outside my house, and you haven't said a word about why. I don't want to be the pushy, nosy girlfriend Sam – but that is not 'fine.' By any means which we may define the word 'fine.'"

Sam grimaced. So all that shit wasn't just a trippy ass dream? It actually happened… which meant that all he remembered before that happened to? Or it didn't. It couldn't have. It was impossible. He stretched, groggy, and felt a few joints crack in relief. He looked down and realized that he felt unfamiliar in his own skin. He was taller than he was before. And muscle mass bulged out in weird ass places. He'd been a tall lanky teenager not so long ago…

"How long was I gone?" Sam asked.

"Almost two weeks," Leah told him quietly.

"Is my mom okay?"

"Not really," Leah replied honestly. "Rachel, Jare, and I have been keeping an eye on her but we've all also had school. She's a wreck without you. She thinks she drove you off like she drove your dad off."

Sam sighed in a long-suffering sort of way, and rubbed his hands over his face. He was becoming his father. "I should probably go… fix that."

Leah exhaled. He knew she wanted to remind him that she'd said that  _last night_ , but she was apparently trying to tread cautiously. Sam appreciated that. "Yeah," she agreed. "You should."

Sam stood and stretched, the cold floor not even registering against his inflamed skin. Leah was right, he was totally running a fever but it didn't make him feel any different. He didn't feel sick. Well… at least not that kinda sick.

"Any chance you have a spare shirt of mine floating around, too?" Sam thought maybe skipping on home after a two week hiatus without a shirt on might've just been piling on the issues. When he didn't hear a response he turned around.

"Lee-lee?"

She just stared at him unbelievingly, mouth slightly agape. "Sam… have you seen yourself?" She stood and crossed the room. She closed her bedroom door and tugged him towards the full-length mirror that hung there.

"Holy shit!" he jumped at the sight. After the initial shock, he rushed the door getting as close as possible. "No way. No way, no way, no way. That is not me."

"It's you." Leah assured.

"This is not me. This is invasion of the fucking body snatchers."

"Trust me. I know you when I see you." She lifted his hand and pointed. "Same grease burn scar from eighth grade." She grasped his chin in a firm grip. "Same crazy hairline. Same too small ears. Same uneven eyebrows. Same gorgeous eyes."

He stared into the mirror, trying to find himself in the minefield of coincidences Leah pointed out. She was right. His eyebrows still gave him that permanent smirking expression; he still had that same cowlick near his right temple. But his face was so different. He used to be pretty tall for his age, but mostly lanky. His face starting to lose that roundness of childhood. Now, though… now was

Different. Insanely different. Completely unbelievably different. His cheeks had hollowed out a bit and the bone structure beneath had become more pronounced.

There was a furrow between his brow and his entire expression looked far more severe then it ever had before. And that was just his face. His shoulders were significantly wider than they were before. So much so that he knew that even if Leah had one of his old shirts, he wouldn't fit into it.

He was at least six and a half feet tall now. He had to stoop to see in Leah's mirror. And he'd filled out his frame, no longer coming close to a "lanky" qualification. Overall, he realized that he looked so different he might've been hard to recognize.

"I can see why you were worried," Sam muttered in amazement.

"Thank you," Leah replied. "You want to talk about it?"

"I…" Sam began trying to find something to say that wouldn't make her run screaming for the hills.  _Oh, honey, I just transformed into a giant wolf and went running at highway speeds around the Olympic mountain range for a few weeks. Or ate some weird ass bread mold that sent me on a two week LSD bender. No big thing._  "I… uh. I don't know. I'm not… I'm not on drugs, or on the run from the cops." He added those two in quick. He could at least give her that. Although he was starting to think that maybe he'd been roofied.

"Sam that explanation really blows, and I think I've been pretty fucking levelheaded and patient these past two weeks. I need something to go on here."

"I gotta go sort this out. I dunno, Lee-lee. I should go see my mom. I gotta get my head on straight, okay? Then we can talk?"

"Fine," Leah replied shortly, and Sam knew it to be that kind of girl thing where she said 'fine' but it really wasn't fine at all. For now he was just thankful that she was letting it lie. "Let me go see if I can find one of dad's old shirts from his football days. Though, he wasn't as wide as a semi, we'll see what we can do."

There was a small semblance of a smile and Leah ruffled Sam's hair and left him to stare at himself in the mirror for a few more minutes while she rustled up an old button up shirt.

"So, now what?" Leah asked as she leaned on the front door's frame and Sam stepped onto the top step in the cool morning air.

Sam leaned against the railing and even though he knew it could take his weight he could hear the strain against the smallest wood grains. "I gotta go home, and reap the consequences of disappearing on my mother for two weeks. Then… I dunno, Leah. I gotta sort my shit out. You don't just disappear for two weeks for no reason."

"That's kinda what I've been getting at, sweetheart."

Sam pushed himself from the railing and even at a step below Leah he was at the same height. "I'm sorry I can't give you a better explanation. I just… I want to explain so that it makes sense and you don't think I'm crazy, okay? I love you, hon."

Leah smiled what was probably the closest thing to a genuine smile since Sam had called her into the woods last night. "Thank you. I love you, too. Do what you gotta do, Sam. But just remember that I'm here, all right? I've always got your back."

And Sam gave his girlfriend a kiss, ran home to take the edge off, tried not to puke on the way, and tried to ignore the second consciousness meandering around in the back of his mind.

* * *

"Oh my god. I'm surprised this beast didn't drag me off the road with all it's grinding and spurting. There ain't no decent mechanic in Neah Bay, and the guys in town have just a little too much sleaze for my liking if you know what I mean. But enough about me. How are you Leah?!"

Emily paused for an exhale and Leah couldn't help but smile. Emily was just as talkative as Seth. Apparently they got it from their shared grandmother. The familiarity was comforting to Leah's frazzled mind. Sam had resurfaced, sure, but that didn't make her feel as good as she thought it would. She was glad he was okay, but he was lying to her. Or at least, he wasn't telling her the whole truth.

That made Leah worry. Because Sam was an open book around her. She was the repository for all his emotional ups and downs. He told her about everything. She wasn't one to push, but she was worried. She didn't want him bottling everything up, because if he wasn't telling her who would he tell?

"Oh, Emily," Leah smiled as Emily enveloped her in a full-scale hug. "It's so good to see you."

"Hey girl, hey," Emily grinned sadly. "So, I'm glad Sam's back in town – my mom gave me the message before I left – but things are still cray cray? What's going on?"

Leah flopped down on the front steps, the sun having dried the morning's dew from the wood. Leah had managed to get through the week of school without losing her marbles. Sam was in class off and on, and they returned to their normal schedule during the school day but Leah saw hide nor hair of him after class. He made excuses for the first few days but after that Leah told him he should just go do what he needed to do.

Jared volunteered to follow Sam. Rachel smacked Jared.

Leah didn't want to push too much, to take the precarious step and have it send Sam back over the edge. She was playing it safe.

Emily folded her long, colorful skirt and sat neatly next to Leah. Leah leaned into her shoulder and Emily wrapped an arm around her.

"It's been insane, Em. Yeah, Sam's back but he's not right. He looks different, for starters. And he's acting differently. He just seems… terrified. Like he's constantly terrified. I don't want to push him away, but I can't help if I don't know what's going on. Sam tells me everything, Em. You know that. And he's a good guy. He says it's not drugs or anything illegal, but I don't know what else to think…"

"Wow," Emily puffed. "That's a lot. I get the feeling you've been over-thinking, too."

"Nooo," Leah whined.

"Lees, you are the reigning queen of the over-think. It's cool. Because it means you're way more observant than my chatterbox self. But it doesn't mean I'm going to let you eat yourself alive."

"That sounds gross."

"As long as no one's on bath salts, then I think we'll be fine. So… what's this weekend's poison? Bad movies? Road trip? Eating our feelings? All of the above?"

"How about bad movies, eating our feelings, and singing really bad music at the top of our lungs?"

"Gotcha. I'll get the Alanis Morrissette albums and the Brat Pack films out of the car and we can make a run into town for really bad Chinese food."

"Only if it has disgusting amounts of MSG and sodium."

* * *

Sue had fussed sufficiently over Emily once she'd gotten home from work. Leah was happy, at least, to see her mother in a marginally better mood.

Seth came running in the house and skidded to a stop in the kitchen. He'd given Emily a hug, reveling in his teenage strength that allowed him to pick her up off the floor a few inches when he hugged her. But when he'd seen the movies strewn on the living room floor he'd announced he was going to spend the evening harassing Jacob Black.

Leah and Emily had adequately staked their claim over the Clearwater living room, apparently.

They were halfway into  _Sixteen_   _Candles_  and completely out of crab rangoons and flipping through magazines where the biggest care was finding a liquid eye shadow that didn't pool in the creases of the eye.

"Tell me about your life," Leah demanded. "I haven't seen you in such a long time, and I really want to think about someone else's life besides mine for a while. How's Nathan?"

"Ugh," Emily sighed in an exaggerated way as her head lolled back. "Kicked that boy to the  _curb._ "

"Finally!" Leah replied in relief. "Took you long enough."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Emily waved her off flippantly. "He's a good guy, I guess. But a total manchild, y'know? He doesn't even think to think about anyone but himself. Nevermind my being a petty bitch and complaining about him never thinking about me or my feelings or any of that typical chick stuff. No, he never thought of anyone else besides himself."

"Only child syndrome?" Leah asked.

"I dunno…" Emily shrugged, honestly confused. "Maybe it's just that the community dynamic is, like, ingrained on my DNA from living on the rez my whole life. He only just moved back with his parents before high school. Maybe I'm the freak."

"You are a freak, but I don't think you're the defective part in that set up."

"Thanks," Emily smiled. "I've been on a couple dates, but… meh. I just don't think it's my scene right now. I like my me-time.  _Oh my god–"_ she gasped with a sudden realization. "Leah, I just remembered. You wouldn't believe the awesome classes I've been taking!"

"And you call  _me_  a nerd?" Leah smirked.

"This is different, Leah," Emily whined. "It's not school. The tribe's been doing that whole cultural revitalization thing and they've actually managed to cobble together enough speakers to offer language classes."

"No way," Leah gasped. "Jealous… That must be fun."

"It is," she nodded. "It's completely different than what I expected but still cool. I'm trying to see if I can get a job in one of the admin buildings where a few of the speakers work their regular jobs so I can kind of, like, covertly practice with them."

Leah laughed in earnest that time.

"Apparently they're going to start doing a rotating thing. They're going to start offering classes on traditional handiwork too and just kind of go where the demand and the knowledge takes them."

Leah sighed. Partly jealous, and partly coming to terms with the fact that now Emily would be periodically charging into her room or calling her up talking in languages she didn't understand or showing her how to weave or stitch something too complicated for her fingers to finesse.

"Haters to the left," Emily sang.

* * *

Leah was markedly calmer at the start of the week. Emily's eternal calm and constant talk had kept her preoccupied and gave her a sense of normalcy. It was just Leah and Emily. Just like old times. Sam called Saturday evening to tell Leah that he was still alive and that he wasn't ignoring her, but he didn't want to distract her. Leah just twiddled the edge of her sweatshirt sleeve as she listened and Emily rolled her eyes a lot.

Emily liked Sam. At a certain point in the past few years she realized that him and Leah had become a bit of a package deal. Emily was cool with that. Sam was a nice guy and a lot of fun and could reach the things off the high shelves. However, Emily was staunchly of the opinion that Sam was full of shit and that Leah deserved a better explanation.

Emily drove home on Sunday afternoon after she agreed to pay Jacob in food to make her car stop making whatever noise that was that made it sound like it was forging open the gates to hell when she went over 55MPH.

That left Leah to face the week alone. She's feeling better about that concept on Monday morning than when she was on Friday afternoon. Progress was progress.

She moseyed through the front door of QTS with Rachel. The pair were trying to summon the energy to remain conscious but it was hard so close to the end of senior year. She felt a hand carefully snag the sleeve of her shirt. She turned around and was absolutely not expecting Sam.

But there he was.

He looked different. Different than his usual different. She felt his hand slip down from her sleeve to her hand and stay there. "Hi Lees."

"I'm just going to… dig something out of my locker. Over there. See you in class, Leah."

Rachel eyed Sam speculatively and wandered off.

"Hi Sam," Leah greeted him in a resigned way. She really wasn't expecting much and it sucked to know that.

"Could I have a minute?" Sam asked, nodding in the general direction of an empty classroom. Leah nodded in acquiescence and she trailed after Sam, their fingers still slightly laced together. Leah turned to close the door behind her and when she turned back around Sam carefully closed the distance.

He leaned in and placed a kiss square on her forehead. Leah closed her eyes, trying not to get her hopes up. There was no way he was back to normal. Even if he was she still had no explanation, which meant that things weren't back to normal. That was the general premise of every day now. Everything came with a caveat.

But it was hard to ignore how nice it felt. How comfortable, safe, normal… "I missed you Lee-lee," Sam muttered from his spot, immobile. Leah wondered if maybe he was testing her reaction to make sure she was comfortable. She was plenty comfortable.

"I missed you too," she admitted. "A lot."

She heard a shuffle as he moved closer and she felt his hands on her hips.  _So familiar_. "I still don't know what to tell you, Leah," Sam said and she felt the trail of hot air move down the side of her face as Sam kissed along her hairline and gently nudged her ear.

"The truth is always a good place to start," Leah replied trying to focus on the conversation at hand and emergency hormonal response that had suddenly flared to life at seven thirty in the morning.

"That's still kind of a hard place to find…" Sam admitted. Satisfied that Leah wasn't going to sock him in the solar plexus, he bent down and kissed her. He moved slow, like dealing with a wild animal. Some part of Sam's consciousness thought that was pretty goddamn novel.

Leah let her backpack drop off her one shoulder and to the floor. She reached up and her hands found their usual places at Sam's head and neck.  _So normal_. The tentative caress escalated quickly when Leah pushed back off the door to get closer and her fingers tightened. Sam met her force-for-force and her back quickly hit the door once again.

She felt his teeth graze her lip ever so slightly and she practically purred at the thought. "Sam… please…" she rasped as his mouth moved and began to migrate down the column of her neck.

"Please what?" he replied. And for once he wasn't teasing her. He really didn't know what she was after.

"I dunno," she said honestly.

She felt his hands wander underneath the fabric of her shirt before his fingers glanced just beneath the waistband of her jeans. "Mm," she hummed, and her fingers dug in against Sam's skin. She pushed herself closer searching for friction and found it in the rock hard resistance in Sam's jeans. She slipped one hand down and rubbed against the bulge.

Sam growled and Leah smiled. He hooked a finger into the belt loop of her jeans and tugged her further into the room towards the tables. She bumped up against the edge of one for a moment before she felt Sam make easy work of the button and fly of her jeans. He reached inside the denim and she felt his hands strong and firm as they wrapped around her ass.

"Oh, I missed that," Sam told her.

"That makes two of us," Leah replied, using his own force to gain some kind of friction against the bulging groin of his jeans. Leah's blind fingers worked his pants free quickly and Sam used a hand against her hip to spin her around so she faced the table. He dropped her pants and underwear to her knees, exposing her full, round ass to him.

He kneaded her appreciatively in his hands. When she bent lower to push herself closer, silently asking for some relief, he slipped a hand between her legs and his fingers found her center easily. Wet and warm and the smell was already permeating the air.

"Oh, Sam… Don't tease me," she begged. She could feel him directly behind her, the ambient heat was insane. She felt him retract his hand momentarily and her head dropped, just wanting  _something._  She laid her forearms against the table and felt Sam's hands return to her hips and he guided her – finally – to relief.

She gasped as he pushed quickly inside her – no longer slow and hesitant like when they'd first come in the room moments ago. She tried to part her legs further, but was caught by her jeans still stuck around her knees. Instead she simply her butt back and towards Sam as he thrust into her.

She could feel Sam as he moved inside her rubbing in just the right spot. She followed the quick and steady sound of his hips smacking against her bottom and relished the feel of their skin smacking together messily. Oh, how she'd missed this…

Sam leaned over her bent form and his lips found the skin at the back of her neck. "Just keep going," she demanded as his hands moved slowly in comparison to his thrusts. She laid one of her hands over his and guided it around her front and between her legs. Sam's thumb circled the small nub tucked in her folds and she groaned low. Leah's hands snapped from against his to brace herself against the table. The hand not set to teasing her clit moved along her abdomen until it found its way under the tight confines of her bra.

Sam's rough fingers brushed against a pert nipple before giving it a light tweak. Leah whined and let the sensory overload take the reins for her logic. She hadn't felt this good in a while, and it was wonderful to feel again. She maintained the rhythm of her hips as she pushed her ass back and back meeting Sam for each thrust.

She felt the small jolt in Sam's rhythm as his climax began and moments later he shuddered as he emptied himself inside her. The pattern of his hips gone, his hand drew a final circuit around the swollen nub in his familiar and practiced way and Leah's thigh muscle's twitched, her walls clenching down around Sam's few fingers. Her knees turned to jello and she probably stayed upright solely thanks to Sam pinning her to the table.

She leaned her forehead against the cool table top, catching her breath and Sam pulled away. She could feel the intermix of their juices starting to run down one of her legs. What the hell had just happened? Before having time to even think about really evaluating that, she heard a tear and turned. Sam brandished a roll of paper towels and helped salvage her jeans before any otherwise unexplainable messiness ruined them.

"That was new," Leah remarked with a smile as she watched Sam carefully tend to the mess they'd made. "Didn't know you were into it from behind."

"Easy in, easy out?" Sam grinned mischievously. "Given…"

"Given that we just fucked in a classroom?" Leah supplied.

"You said it not me," Sam pointed out as he stood fully upright and Leah wiggled her jeans back into place. He balled a layer of clean paper towels around the ones in his hand and sank it into the large rolling trash barrel in the back of the room. "But, I have been hella horny this weekend. Not gonna lie."

He moved close. No longer concerned with moving slowly he looped an arm around her waist and his mouth started at her collar bone and began a lazy warm trail downwards. "Go figure… I am so late for class," Leah remarked.

"Mm… that's a pity," Sam hummed distractedly as his lips down the swell of her breast.

Leah didn't make it to first period.

* * *

Lunch was slightly less awkward than it had been. They still all ate together, and Rachel made a point of staring across the table wide-eyed. It was the first time Sam and Leah had sat next to each other in a while. Sam seemed quite content in his spot back next to his girlfriend, his hand resting casually around her thigh. Leah might've been a little too flabbergasted to give a shit about PDA.

"What the hell happened?" Rachel hissed as the table parted ways for afternoon classes.

"I'm sure whatever you're imagining is probably true," Leah whispered back. "And I'm so not sharing that story in the walls of this school."

" _Oh my god,_ " Rachel wailed as the pair marched into their shared English class.

* * *

Leah wasn't quite sure how she and Sam had ended up going home together after school – hadn't he taken his car to school that morning? But they had. She also wasn't quite sure how they'd ended up in her room – just like this – but they had. The frantic encounter they'd shared in the classroom that morning had been hasty and a little panicked, though the pair had slipped unseen and undetected out of the space once first period had begun.

No… now was different. Leah had somehow ended up at her house, in her room, with Sam, after school. He'd been just as friendly as when she'd first followed him into that classroom and Leah swore their skin was going to begin to meld together as they fumbled through her empty house towards her room.

Sam had tossed her onto her bed with a bounce and dragged her pants entirely off this time. When she reached down begin tugging at clothing she'd found him out of her reach. He knelt on the floor and hooked a hand around her knees and dragged her so that her ass only just reached the end of the bed. She felt lips, tongue, and teeth work down her abdomen over her waist before he nudged her vulva – tender from their rough encounter earlier in the day – and placed careful kisses against her mound. His fingers stroked her open carefully and his mouth took over thereafter.

Leah watched the top of his dark head as he ministered to her, slow and precise. She'd wrapped her hands into his hair. She alternated between an awkward pretzel hold around his shoulders and pressing the balls of her feet against the side of the mattress in an attempt to gain some kind of purchase against Sam's movement.

He was methodical and nothing like he'd been earlier in the day. Leah both loved and hated it. It felt wonderful, radiating pleasure through her in a soft hum from her core and out to her limbs. At the same time she was using her death grip to refrain from forcing herself onto Sam's face.

His arms had looped under her legs and she could feel his hands against her abdomen trying to keep her in some semblance of a helpful position. Sam eventually reached up and found Leah's hands, winding them with his own. "You taste so good, Lee-lee." That had been her undoing. She'd felt the second orgasm of the day grip her and pulse through her system. She melted into the mattress one bone at a time and then seemingly all at once.

"You are very friendly today," Leah commented slowly, as she draped one arm over her eyes.

"Well I figure it's a small thank you for letting me take you against a lab table at eight in the morning." She could hear the shy smile in Sam's voice and couldn't imagine it on his new face. She could see it on the Old Sam though. She felt the bed shift with his weight and the sudden presence of his heat at her side. She sat up on her elbows momentarily before rolling over, landing herself against his chest.

"Uh-huh," she grinned. "And that one came out nowhere too. Do you remember when we first slept together? You were so paranoid we gonna get caught, like we were sacrificing a virgin on something. Oh, wait…"

Sam laughed in earnest and he caught himself. Leah realized that he'd surprised himself.

"I've been horny as all hell this weekend. I was gonna call you… but I noticed Em came by and I didn't want to be the assbag boyfriend that went nuts, bailed, came back with no explanations, and then pulled you away from friend time to get laid."

"Oh, I hate those kinds of boyfriends. Good life choice, Sam."

"I know I was gone for a while, but I figured maybe seeing me and still not getting any good answers was far inferior as far as weekend plans go when compared to hanging out with your best friend."

"Granted," Leah admitted. She willed herself not pump him for information, even though she knew she deserved it. This was something, whatever the hell they were doing.

"I still don't know what to tell you, Lees," Sam said, practically reading her mind. "I think I might've been in shock for a while. I don't really remember a lot."

"Really?" Leah propped an elbow on his chest to support her chin. "Not even why you left?"

He shook his head. "It's weird. I don't remember a lot right before I took off."

"You should probably get that checked out." Leah wasn't exactly kidding, though there was a kind of black humor to the moment.

"Look, I gotta go catch up on two weeks of homework that I missed. Hope you don't mind if I bail?"

"No. Go do work. You want a ride tomorrow? You left your car at school."

"That'd be good." He planted a kiss on her forehead and was out the door.

The walk home wasn't far. Less than half a mile. And it was a nice day out. Actually… that was irrelevant, because Sam was realizing that he could've stood in the middle of Siberia and made permafrost into a puddle.

He was feeling, simultaneously, worse and better. He'd lied to Leah. He hadn't forgotten anything. As a matter of fact, he remembered it all in vivid detail and thought it would've been really nice if he could forget. Maybe if he hit his head really hard? Well… that probably wouldn't work either. Sam had discovered this morning that whatever had fucked with him for two weeks hadn't quite left him. Besides the growth spurt, and the furnace-like body temperature, and the semi-sentient consciousness that still compelled his instincts every now and again.

He was pretty sure that was what had been driving his hormones all weekend. Admittedly, he felt a lot better getting it out of his system, but he couldn't lie to himself: he'd used Leah. He'd used her for sexual gratification, and sure, she apparently enjoyed it and she wasn't opposed but it was a completely selfish act on his part. That wasn't exactly how he was used to approaching things with Leah. Leah was generally the repository for most of his selflessness and to use her just to fuck her felt wrong. He knew it was wrong, but hell if he would be glad to not walk around at halfmast for another two days.

But he hadn't puked for panic in at least twelve hours. So there was always that.

 


End file.
